Martial Arts and Weight Loss
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trackercasey76
Posts: 780 Member
I was just reading this and thought it was interesting
"Taekwondo for Weight Loss
Martial arts is a great way to lose weight. For example, according to the Mayo Clinic, a 160 pound person burns 730 calories per hour at Taekwondo. However, a person must burn off approximately 3,500 calories (this amount varies based on a person's size & weight) in order to lose just one pound. Therefore, to lose one pound of fat per week, you will need to take roughly 5 Taekwondo classes per week. Or to lose ten pounds, you need to participate in 5 Taekwondo classes per week for 2.5 months or take 50 Taekwondo classes without changing your eating habits (such as eating more because you are hungry from all of the calories that you are burning off).
People trying to lose weight will experiment with many types of diets (i.e. meat diets or no carb diets). However, in my mind, it comes down to consuming less calories and/or burning off more calories. I believe in the basic eat less (especially junk food) and exercise more (i.e. participate in more martial art classes) philosophy of weight loss.
FYI - Over the years, Taekwondo has helped me to lose 10+ pounds, firmed up my body & face and I am looking 10 years younger (okay, at least a few years younger!).
Taekwondo burns off a lot of calories but don't "defeat" this calorie burn by eating too much junk food. The 730 calories burned by an entire one hour Taekwondo class is roughly equal to the following foods/drinks:
•One Taekwondo class equals 7-9 small chocolate chip cookies.
•One Taekwondo class equals 4-5 glasses of beer.
•One Taekwondo class equals 2-3 slices of pepperoni pizza.
•One Taekwondo class equals less than a Big Mac, large fries and medium Coke (730 calories versus 1,250 calories).
Therefore having cookies, beer and McDonald's during the week might mean weeks of Taekwondo classes in order to burn off the accumulated calories!
A Taekwondo class is fun and importantly a "quicker" way to burn off calories than many other activities.
One hour of Taekwondo (in terms of calories burned) is equal to the following activities:
•2 hours of shoveling snow
•2 hours of golf - WHAT????! No way. I don't believe that golf burns so many calories!
Seriously, the golf calories are based on walking the golf course and carrying a golf bag.
•2.5 hours of raking the lawn
•3 hours of walking (at 2 miles per hour)
•3 hours of cleaning
•4 hours of cooking
•5.5 hours of working at your desk
•13 hours of watching TV - Hmm… Do we burn more calories if we are watch UFC fighting?
•16 hours of sleeping
Final conclusion - Forget the Atkins Diet and join a Taekwondo class!"
Source
http://www.taekwondoanimals.com/taekwondo-weight-loss
"Taekwondo for Weight Loss
Martial arts is a great way to lose weight. For example, according to the Mayo Clinic, a 160 pound person burns 730 calories per hour at Taekwondo. However, a person must burn off approximately 3,500 calories (this amount varies based on a person's size & weight) in order to lose just one pound. Therefore, to lose one pound of fat per week, you will need to take roughly 5 Taekwondo classes per week. Or to lose ten pounds, you need to participate in 5 Taekwondo classes per week for 2.5 months or take 50 Taekwondo classes without changing your eating habits (such as eating more because you are hungry from all of the calories that you are burning off).
People trying to lose weight will experiment with many types of diets (i.e. meat diets or no carb diets). However, in my mind, it comes down to consuming less calories and/or burning off more calories. I believe in the basic eat less (especially junk food) and exercise more (i.e. participate in more martial art classes) philosophy of weight loss.
FYI - Over the years, Taekwondo has helped me to lose 10+ pounds, firmed up my body & face and I am looking 10 years younger (okay, at least a few years younger!).
Taekwondo burns off a lot of calories but don't "defeat" this calorie burn by eating too much junk food. The 730 calories burned by an entire one hour Taekwondo class is roughly equal to the following foods/drinks:
•One Taekwondo class equals 7-9 small chocolate chip cookies.
•One Taekwondo class equals 4-5 glasses of beer.
•One Taekwondo class equals 2-3 slices of pepperoni pizza.
•One Taekwondo class equals less than a Big Mac, large fries and medium Coke (730 calories versus 1,250 calories).
Therefore having cookies, beer and McDonald's during the week might mean weeks of Taekwondo classes in order to burn off the accumulated calories!
A Taekwondo class is fun and importantly a "quicker" way to burn off calories than many other activities.
One hour of Taekwondo (in terms of calories burned) is equal to the following activities:
•2 hours of shoveling snow
•2 hours of golf - WHAT????! No way. I don't believe that golf burns so many calories!
Seriously, the golf calories are based on walking the golf course and carrying a golf bag.•2.5 hours of raking the lawn
•3 hours of walking (at 2 miles per hour)
•3 hours of cleaning
•4 hours of cooking
•5.5 hours of working at your desk
•13 hours of watching TV - Hmm… Do we burn more calories if we are watch UFC fighting?
•16 hours of sleeping
Final conclusion - Forget the Atkins Diet and join a Taekwondo class!"
Source
http://www.taekwondoanimals.com/taekwondo-weight-loss
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Replies
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For me, I lose about 2x / week when I am hitting the training hard vs. my normal deficit. Even when I'm eating back 1/2 my exercise calories, the weight comes off MUCH easier thanks to all my martial arts workouts.
And from what I have learned, and experienced - Taekwondo (and Martial arts in general) is a serious torch when it comes to calories (assuming you are working hard and not just doing the minimums). My HRM can easily rack up 900 cals/hour when sparring, or during my more intense forms workouts.0 -
I haven't lost much weight since I started martial arts, but I think I've become slimmer/stronger. At the same weight, some old clothes fit when they didn't before and I have some muscle definition (where I previously had none)2
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BJJ was the only exercise I did for my first 50lbs of weight loss. Tweak to the diet - i.e., not eating fast food every meal - BJJ 4-5 times a week and that first 50 just fell off. Next 25 or so required more diet refinement but BJJ along with a bit other of the primary stand up arts in MMA still made up all of my exercise. I added other things like a little lifting and traditional cardio work, but I do that because it is good for me especially to prevent injury - not because I like it. It also helped get the last 15 off.
I always suggest martial arts to my friends as a potential avenue for activity if they loathe traditional gyms like I do.2 -
My thyroid is currently totally out of wack. I've upped my training and other workouts to minimize the weight gain. I'm looking forward to finding the right medicine levels, because if I continue with this effort I should start losing weight.1
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@bianca42 - I also somehow got thyroid imbalance a few years ago. One thing that really helped was cutting way back on raw cruciferous vegetables. I thought I was being really healthy and eating them at almost every meal and apparently if you have thyroid issues you should avoid eating them raw and instead cook them (kale, cauliflower, cabbage, etc). Also ironically for me - soy products! I can still definitely feel when things are going out of whack but I've been able to control a lot of the coldness and hair falling out with just those weird changes in diet.1
